


The Bells Ring Out Of Tune

by ladyknightley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknightley/pseuds/ladyknightley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up is hard, and not festive. Charlie and Tonks are starting to learn this. (Friendship fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bells Ring Out Of Tune

**Author's Note:**

> With grateful thanks to diva gonzo for the medical help. Contains some mild blood and gore, if that's not your thing!

Red. Or green. Or maybe silver and gold if that was too cliché. It was Christmas, after all. Not that it felt like it, this year.

She paused, rolling her eyes at herself. It wasn’t like she could be any more melodramatic at this stage. The castle was looking very festive, as it always did, decked out with holly and tinsel and a hundred Christmas trees. There was snow. She’d bought her gifts. She ate mince pies daily. She was just tired, that was all.

She’d been tired since Hallowe’en. Well. More like the second week in September, when the reality of the six NEWT subjects she was taking—and their attendant workloads—hit her. It was maybe a little bit worrying that she was barely one term into her sixth year and already walking around in a permanent state of exhaustion. But if she wanted to be an Auror...well, what choice did she have?

Nymphadora Tonks heaved a huge sigh, and pulled a strand of her limp, mouse-brown hair down, trying to will it to turn red or green or, indeed, any colour. As usual, nothing happened.

Before she could get too down, the door to Professor McGonagall’s classroom banged open and her best friend exited the room, looking unbearably smug. “Don’t tell me,” she deadpanned. “You’ve managed not to fail your first piece of homework this term.”

“Better,” Charlie said, offering a hand to pull her to her feet. “I’m leaving.”

“Sorry?” she asked. She wasn’t really listening, her mind already on the three essays she had to hand in before the train left in three days. Charlie set off down the corridor and she followed him out of habit.

“I,” he said, spinning around so he was walking backwards, “am leaving Hogwarts. At the end of next term.”

The words, she thought, were going into her head but not her brain. “What?”

“I’m leaving school to take up the apprenticeship. At Easter. I have one more term, then _goodbye_ ,” he repeated, letting out a whoop of laughter.

He was still walking backwards, and she was still facing him and thinking about her Charms essay. “You’re leaving school,” she said. And then, when his words finally hit her: “ _You’re leaving_?!” in a strange panic.

Charlie turned again so they were walking side by side. “Mmhmm,” he said. “There’s an opening for an apprentice at the Dragon Reserve I was telling you about in Romania,” he said, “the one that advertised in the _Prophet_ last week? Well, I applied. And that was what I wanted to talk to McGonagall about—would she write me a reference. Kettleburn’s already said yes, so that’s a given. Assuming I get it—and she said she can’t think of any reason I won’t—the start date’s in May, so I’ll just have one more term in this place and be out by Easter.”

“You can’t,” she said immediately. “You’re only a sixth year.”

“Yeah but you only have to stay in school til you’ve got your OWLs,” he replied. “Then you can leave whenever.”

“But you’re doing NEWTs,” she said, trying to quell the rising panic in her chest. She’d never considered herself a nerd or a bookworm or anyone, really, who particularly cared about school and the Way Things Should Be. But the idea of Charlie just upping and leaving when he shouldn’t, when she still had another year before everything changed and she had to grow up and pretend like she knew what she was doing made her feel like she could collapse there and then in the deserted corridor.

“Yeah, but come on,” he shrugged. “I’m never going to be academic, am I? I’m just about scraping along, and we’re only in the first term of NEWTs. I’ll probably get a good grade in Magical Creatures, if I manage not to bomb the written part of the exam, but for my other subjects...no matter how much work I do, I’ll be lucky to pass. It’s always been that way. I’m stupid.”

“Don’t be thick,” she said, ignoring his raised eyebrow. “You’re good at magic.”

“Practical stuff,” he replied. “I’m good with a wand, yeah. But I barely passed any of the written part of my OWLs and NEWTs are way, way harder. Write an essay on theoretical Transfiguration? No way. But the day-to-day stuff I’d need on a Reserve, to save me from getting burnt half to death by an irate Horntail? Probably, yeah.”

“Wait, they have Horntails as the reserve in Holyhead?”

“Nah—this is the one in Romania. I told you.”

“Romania?” she asked faintly.

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Probably the best place in the world to study dragons. And I’m going for the apprenticeship they’re offering!”

“Oh...” she said, trying to force her face to do the thing it was supposed to. “Good luck, I guess.”

Charlie stopped walking. “Wow,” he said sarcastically. “Thank you for your support.”

“What do you want me to say?” she replied, stopping as well.

“Anything, as long as you mean it.”

“So you want to know what I really think?”

“Yeah, I want to know what you really think! It’s not like you haven’t known for years this is all I want to do with my life!”

Their voices were both rising, and she struggled to stop herself snarling at him. How dare he spring this on her? How dare he change everything? How dare he leave her all alone here for another two years, and think she’d just smile and wave him on his way like their years of friendship meant nothing to him?

“Well I’ll tell you,” she snapped. “I think leaving school barely a term into your NEWTs is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Yeah, you want to go chasing dragons now, but what about when you’re thirty? Fifty? What if you change your mind and you’ve got no qualifications to fall back on? Yeah, you _can_ leave school after your OWLs, but in case you hadn’t noticed, no one does, because then you have _nothing_.”

“What, so I should stay in school and get a bunch of crap grades in subjects I don’t care about so I can go on to become a paper-pusher in an office—”

“No!” she exploded. “But I don’t see what the big rush is! Why d’you have to go now, and not at the end of next year like a normal person? Are you that desperate to get away?”

“The apprentice positions only open every five years,” he said, “so it’s apply now, or wait til I’m twenty two to stand a chance of getting in.”

“And you might not,” she said.

“What?”

“Well,” she said, shrugging with fake-nonchalance. “You said yourself you have to get in. You’ve got an interview, right? You’ll still have to impress them there. And I mean, it’s not like you’ve actually had any experience working with dragons. And you’ve said yourself that your OWL grades aren’t great. So...”

“You think I’m too stupid to get it?” His tone was harsh, but a quick glance at his expression told her she’d gone too far, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Charlie had always struggled with exams and homework and writing; she’d known it for years, and been helping him for years. He knew what he meant to say, but the words never worked out on paper for him. He could do the spells, but unless she’d been there to coach him through endless essays and end of year exams, he’d never have passed half his subjects. And _this_ was how he repaid her: swanning off to Romania at a moment’s notice, leaving her behind like she was just something to be discarded?

“Like I say,” she repeated, her tone studiedly light. “Grades actually do count for _some_ thing. Maybe you’re good at practical magic, wandwork and that. But a string of A’s-at-best don’t exactly show that to a prospective employer, do they?”

He gave her a look of total contempt, and she realised that that had been it: she knew this was a sensitive topic for him, and she’d never once said anything so mean, or even lightly teased him about it. It was the one thing that was always totally off limits. But in that instant, she was too angry at him, for reasons she could hardly begin to understand, to say anything.

“You’re such a—”

It happened so quickly then: he was halfway through an insult, already spinning around, away from her, not looking where he was going, and he tripped into the suit of armour along the wall. He wheeled for a moment, arms flailing, and she stepped back with a shriek as both he and the suit of armour went down in an almighty crash.

The moment the noise stopped, and a heavy, terrifying silence fell, she knew that something bad had happened. This wasn’t a slapstick, wounded-pride moment: Charlie was lying deathly still on the floor, and already she could see blood pooling around his head.

Her vision swam, and she dropped to her knees. _No_. She needed to keep it together. She _would_ keep it together. “Help!” she shouted, but no one came running. They’d taken a quiet route from Professor McGonagall’s classroom, and most of the school were at dinner, Charlie having stayed late to talk to his head of house.

She kept shouting as loud as she could as she shoved the suit of armour out of the way, but she knew it was no use. No one would hear them.

“Charlie,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Charlie, can you hear me? Charlie! Wake up!”

He didn’t move, but she crouched down low and heard that he was breathing—slowly, but steadily. It wasn’t all bad news. But she couldn’t relax, already tearing her jumper off and pressing it as hard as she could against the cut on his head. The cut on his head from where the armour had hit seemed only the tiniest of wounds, but the amount of blood pouring out of it made her feel sick, and she tried to force the panic down.

Why didn’t she know the right magic to sort this? It was just a simple injury, and she had no idea what spells to use. What use was she?!

“Get a grip,” she snarled under her breath. She continued to press the jumper against the wound, but it was dark, and she couldn’t see what difference, if any, she was making. Charlie must have been unconscious for only a minute, maybe less, but her fear was growing by the second. If she didn’t get help, _now_ , it might be too late—but if she left him to run for help...well, she couldn’t think what might happen. By the time she’d found someone—a teacher, Madam Pomfrey, _anyone_ —and they’d run back...

She could feel the blood seeping through the jumper, onto her hands, and she nearly screamed out loud in frustration and fear. She was alternating shouting for help and murmuring softly to Charlie to wake up, that it was okay, that she was here and she wasn’t going to let anything happen to him, dammit, but there was no sign of anyone, and her soothing tones were doing no good.

One handed, she grappled for her wand, still pressing the jumper against his head with her free hand, and then used magic to siphon off the excess blood. She’d never felt so useless: here she was, a witch, capable of using magic, but she still had no idea how to fix him. Even if she conjured some bandages, she wouldn’t know how to put them on so they helped, rather than making things worse.

And she needed to get help.

But she couldn’t leave him.

If only there was some way, some magic she could use...

It came to her in a flash: the Patronus spell they had begun to work on in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Professor Mulholland had explained the theory, and she’d been practising. She could now—just about—conjure a fully formed corporeal one. And she knew that they could be used to send messages. If she tried, if she really, really tried...

It probably wouldn’t work.

You needed to be calm and happy and not panicking that your friend would bleed out on the floor. You needed all your concentration, too, not dedicating most of your brain to pressing anything you could find against a head wound to stop it bleeding everywhere. You probably also needed not to have shouted yourself hoarse, screaming for help.

But after a few false starts, she managed it.

For a second, she was too shocked to speak, staring at the ghostly badger before her. Then she gathered her wits. “Professor McGonagall,” she said clearly. “A student is seriously injured in the passageways behind the Transfiguration classrooms, about a hundred yards before the east stairway. Bring Madam Pomfrey.” The badger seemed to be looking back at her. “Go!” she snapped, and it did.

She dropped her wand, using both hands to press as hard as she could against Charlie’s head. He was still deathly pale, but he was also still breathing. He would, she realised, probably survive.

“You better bloody had,” she muttered. “Just hold on, help is coming. Don’t you _dare_ do anything else.”

* * *

After that, things became a bit of a blur. Professors McGonagall, Snape and Dumbledore had hurtled down the corridor only a moment later, pushing her out of the way and performing some complex spellwork between them. By the time Professor Sprout had jogged up, Madam Pomfrey in tow, Charlie was beginning to stir, though Professors Snape and McGonagall were holding him still on the floor.

He’d been stretchered away, and Professor McGonagall had commanded Tonks to go to her office, where she’d had to explain the incident, again and again and again. The Professor had forced her to drink several very sugary cups of tea and eat about a hundred Ginger Newts, but once she was satisfied it was nothing but a very unfortunate accident, she’d headed back up to the hospital wing, to check on Charlie, then to write to his parents.

“Mr Weasley will be okay,” she assured her, on her return. “Mostly thanks to your actions. You may take fifty points for Hufflepuff for your quick thinking, and for the truly outstanding Patronus Charm you produced.”

“He’ll be okay?” Tonks pressed. She couldn’t feel glad about the latter part of the Professor’s statement, not when she still felt such guilt over her argument with Charlie. If she hadn’t distracted him, he might never have injured himself, and if something had happened to him...well, it would have been her fault.

“Madam Pomfrey says that you cannot visit tonight, because he needs to rest, but your actions no doubt saved his life, or at least saved him from serious injury,” said the Professor. “You should return to your dormitory, and try to rest. I shall have the suit of armour removed at once, to prevent similar incidents, but I think we can all agree this was an accident that could have been much worse. I shall ask your teachers to excuse you from homework until the end of term. I think you could do with the break, although I shall expect you to attend lessons tomorrow.”

“Will Charlie be allowed home?” she asked.

“Of course,” said Professor McGonagall. “Madam Pomfrey anticipates keeping him in the Infirmary until the end of term purely as a precautionary measure. Even with magic, one cannot be too careful with head wounds. But as I say—thanks to your actions and barring any unforeseen complications at this stage, Mr Weasley should most definitely be well enough to travel home on the train as normal. Now, I must insist that you go back to the dormitories to rest. Would you like me, or perhaps a friend, to accompany you back?”

“No thank you,” she said. “I think I’m okay.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” smiled the Professor. “And I should add: that Patronus Charm was truly magnificent, especially as Professor Mulholland informs me you have not yet studied more than the theory. You should be very proud. Professor Sprout says that you indicated to her that you would like to join the Auror Department on leaving school?”

Tonks nodded.

“With skills like that, I cannot see why you would not be a successful applicant.” Tonks did her best not to gape. “Keep it up,” nodded Professor McGonagall. “And—Merry Christmas, Miss Tonks. Please do pass on my best festive wishes to Mr Weasley—I’ve no doubt you will be seeing him tomorrow.”

She smiled. “Merry Christmas, Professor.”

* * *

“I wish I could’ve seen your Patronus,” Charlie said. “Fred and George told me that everyone just stopped when it burst into the Great Hall.”

“It probably gave everyone terrible indigestion,” she shrugged, and he laughed, then winced. “Are you okay?” she asked at once.

“Bit of a headache, but Pomfrey says that’s normal. She’s keeping me in overnight again, but I’m allowed to get the train tomorrow,” Charlie replied.

“Good,” she said. “Since that’ll probably be our last time.”

Charlie tugged at the blankets awkwardly. “I’m not leaving til Easter...” he said.

“Yeah, but...” Tonks trailed off, and sighed. “I’m sorry for what I said...before. I didn’t mean it.”

“I don’t remember the specifics,” he said, “and you don’t have to tell me. How can I be angry at you? You saved my life.”

“You’re my best friend,” she said simply.

“And you’re mine,” he replied. “I know you don’t think this apprenticeship in Romania thing is a good idea. I know you don’t want things to change. And I wish I didn’t have to leave you.” Tonks looked away, staring out of the window at the snow. “And I’m gonna miss you. But I have to at least _try_ for this apprenticeship. If I don’t get it, I don’t get it. But—”

“You’ll get it,” she said, looking back at him. “This is your passion. It’s what you were born to do. You’ll get it, young or not. And, yeah, so you don’t have an O for OWL Ancient Runes, but who cares? You know more about dragons than most people. That’s all that counts. So you should go for the apprenticeship, because you’re going to be great. Don’t wait around here for something less.”

“I’ll miss you though,” he added. “Seriously. You’re my best friend.”

“We’re leaving school at the end of next year anyway, though. It would’ve happened then anway,” she said. “I just...thought we’d have longer before we had to join the real world.”

 “We’ll still see each other loads,” Charlie promised.

Tonks sighed, pulling her legs up underneath her. “We won’t, though,” she said. “We’ll become Christmas-card friends.”

“We’ll what?”

“We’ll turn into the sort of grown-ups who send each other Christmas cards promising to meet up in the new year, then never do,” she said. “My parents have loads. Every year, the same people write ‘sorry not to have seen you this year! We’ve so much to catch up on, we really must arrange a meeting next year!’ in a Christmas card. It’s been going on ten, fifteen, twenty years, and they never see them. _That’s_ what growing up is.”

“We won’t do that,” he insisted. “We’ll still see each other!”

“We won’t!” she said. “We’ll try to, but we’ll both be busy and have grown up lives and grown up problems. Leaving school...that’ll be it, whatever good intentions we have. What else can we do?”

“We can try,” Charlie said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, I think we should just admit that this is it. This year...it just doesn’t feel like Christmas, does it? There’s something in the air that means it’s...not. And I think it’s because things are starting to change. Next year’s our last year at school—this year, in your case. The year after that...who knows what we’ll be doing. When we leave school, when we’re old...Christmas will change. It just doesn’t feel right. And no matter what we say about seeing each other, and all our other friends...it won’t happen. We’ll get old, and things won’t be the same, and it’ll be _rubbish_. If you leave—and I hope you get the job, I really do, because you deserve it and you’ll love it—but if you get it, and you leave, that’s the first step on the way to us being old, and things turning shit. So. Merry Christmas, eh?”

She attempted a laugh, but it came out almost as a sob, or it would have done, if she ever cried. She looked away, out of the window again, grateful for the fact that Charlie was bedbound and unable to come over to her and pat her on the back or offer some kind of false camaraderie.

“Miss Tonks,” said a severe voice, and she jumped, whirling around. “If you think that you are old, you are sorely mistaken. And if you think that Christmas stops when you turn eighteen and leave school, you are mistaken again. Christmas is what you make it, and if you choose not to celebrate, well, that may be. But if you choose to be festive? Well. It will happen.”

Madam Pomfrey was giving her such a look she shrank back. “The years I spent working Christmas Day at St Mungo’s, on A and E? That was not festive, no. But you do what you can, and it all comes out in the end. And by the way—have you ever considered becoming a Healer?” She fixed her with such a beady look Tonks was tempted to get up and run, but she met her gaze.

“Oh, no,” she said, “no offence, but being around ill people makes me feel awful. I can’t do it.”

“Well, at least you’re honest,” Madam Pomfrey said cheerfully. “Now, Mr Weasley. I believe it’s time we reviewed your situation again.”

Her check-up didn’t take long; Charlie was recovering nicely, “And,” Madam Pomfrey said to Tonks, “it’s all thanks to your quick thinking. That really was a stunning Patronus you produced. It is a shame you aren’t interested in Healing, but I’m sure the Aurors will be pleased to have you.”

“That’s what Professor McGonagall said,” Tonks said, after she had left. “Which I suppose is a good sign, given that this time next year I’ll be taking the entrance exams.”

“You’ll pass ’em,” Charlie said confidently.

“Don’t jinx it,” she frowned, but she wasn’t too upset.

“Weird, isn’t it?” he added, and she looked questionably at him. “This is my last Christmas at Hogwarts. Next December, you’ll be taking the entrance exams for the Aurors. Doesn’t seem five minutes since we were first years...”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why it doesn’t feel like Christmas, I think. We’re too old.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe not. I meant what I said earlier. I’ll come and see you ever year at Christmas, even when we’re really old, like our parents. Maybe not for Christmas itself, but you saved my life. I know what happened to me was just an accident, but you did! So I should come back every year and thank you for that, at least.”

“Even when we’re old and grey?”

“Well, I’ll have no hair then,” he said solemnly. “It’ll probably have been burnt off by a dragon. But yes. Even then.”

She laughed. “It could be worse, then, I suppose.”

“What could be worse?”

“Life.”

“It could be a _lot_ worse,” he agreed seriously.

“Things’ll change next year,” she said, “but yeah. They could be worse.”  

“Definitely. I mean, if I don’t get the job after my interview...well, that would be worse.”

“You’ll get it,” Tonks promised.

“And you’ll get the Auror job,” Charlie said. “But even if I do get the apprentice place, my mum might not be too keen on letting me go.”

“She let Bill go all the way to Egypt,” shrugged Tonks. “I’m sure she’ll get over it. Eventually.”

“Yeah,” said Charlie. “By Christmas 2050.”

“As long as it feels festive,” she said.

“And you send me a Christmas card,” he added.

“We’ll manage it between us,” she said, and he smiled.

The conversation turned, then, to mutual friends, homework, Christmas holiday plans, presents they still had to buy. Truth be told, she still didn’t feel festive, and she was still exhausted. Charlie was still in the hospital wing, and until she saw him walk out of it on his own two feet, she wouldn’t believe even the most able Healer about his recovery. Things were changing, more quickly than she would like. She was having to grow up, and at this time of year most of all, that wasn’t a fun realisation.

But when she left the hospital wing, an hour or so later, she noticed, passing the mirror above the door, that her hair had turned a bright, bright Christmassy red, literally without her noticing. She might not feel festive, but Christmas was still happening around her, even when she didn’t feel up for joining in. This year, of all years, she’d embrace that.

 


End file.
